Horses Too Are Gone, The

by Keenan, Michael

  I had to share the seat with Scalp’s guns. There were two of them, both with telescopic sights. Scalp said he had shot two dingoes during the week. The pups were starting to venture out on their own and he expected to increase his weekly tally. He said he lived in Injune and had a scrub-clearing business. The loss of natural habitat flushed the dingoes out and sometimes he would shoot up to ten in a week. The bounty was $25 per head.

  I asked Scalp if he ran any cattle himself and he said about seven hundred cows. There were several dams scattered around the property and the cattle free-ranged. He had two round-ups a year; one for branding and one for trucking and selling the weaners.

  Fifty kilometres north of my camp we crossed the dingo barrier, a two-metre high fence with the netting dug into the ground. It’s known simply as the ‘dog fence’. More than a barrier for wild dogs, it’s the final division between sheep farming and cattle raising in the vast rangelands.

  Scalp had a Queensland road map in his glove box and immediately north of where we crossed the fence lay a huge blank space. Some three hundred kilometres to the north-west was the little town of Tambo. Due north not even a village clung to the map south of the tropics. Far to the north-east and beyond the great gorges of the Carnarvons was another small town called Springsure. In the south-east corner Injune appeared as the gateway to one of the most uninhabited regions in eastern Australia, which I named from that day the ‘Blank Space’.

  The country changed rapidly. Basalt hills rose steeply out of the undulating country and like an ant trail through high grass the road meandered through forests of brigalow on the darker soils and box in the lighter country. The whole area had a different atmosphere and I began to feel the wild stirring in my veins. The steep hills gave way to high tablelands and the air was distinctly cooler. I felt a twinge of disappointment when Scalp stopped at a cattle grid and said we had reached his boundary. The first paddock was the one I could have.

  At this point we left the road and followed a track up into a valley where ranges on both sides closed in to form a gorge. The Nissan churned the mud.

  ‘Got the storms alright,’ Scalp exclaimed with a smile. ‘Your cattle’ll do well here. Wait till I show yer the real feed.’

  The valley country had been lightly ringbarked many years before. The dead timber had fallen and protected a whole range of grass species, but it was country that in the best of seasons would still only handle light stocking rates. At the entrance to the gorge we stopped.

  ‘We’ll walk from here,’ Scalp said. ‘I want to show you the tableland country.’

  He walked about fifty metres and stopped near the foot of a low sandstone cliff. ‘Take a look at this.’

  In the dry interior permanently flowing springs are rare. Judging by the size of the cavern from where the water flowed this one may have been in existence for thousands of years. The flow would not water a herd; maybe sixty to eighty head. Sometimes springs can be a nuisance, tempting the weaker cattle to hang around for water instead of walking to the bore. What fascinated me was the geological formation. The cave itself was eroded out of the sandstone and just above the cave began the basalt. The basalt layer embodied the blackest rock I have ever seen.

  From the cave we walked through the gorge, ascending gradually as we went. The passage to the top was more like a long defile. Before reaching the plateau rim we must have gained about two hundred metres in altitude.

  The scene before my eyes would have excited any pastoralist. The bluegrass tableland seemed to stretch to the edge of the world. There was a soft breeze and I watched in disbelief the wavering tops of a grass knee-high. It looked excellent cattle feed. I plucked some and chewed it. It tasted sweet. If something tastes bad in the bush you can be sure cattle won’t touch it. I kept a handful of grass to show the local Department of Primary Industry officer in Mitchell.

  What struck me most was the lack of trees. Below the plateau rim the country lay under forest to the horizon, with some thinning of trees by ringbarking. On the tablelands it appeared no axe had ever been swung. It crossed my mind Aborigines had undertaken frequent burning up here. Fresh sprouts of bluegrass would act as a magnet to kangaroos.

  The frustrating reality for me was that the cows were not strong enough to feed up onto the tablelands. They would need to gather considerable strength before I could use the paddock to any advantage. The big valleys had pockets of summer grass which were inadequate.

  I explained to Scalp it would be a month before the cows and calves would be strong enough to follow the game trails up the various defiles. With the wet season only beginning I thought the tableland country would carry more than seven hundred head until autumn. Scalp thought that was a conservative figure, saying there were more than fifteen hundred hectares of bluegrass. I wanted to clinch the deal immediately. I have never been particularly religious, but to me fifteen hundred hectares of bluegrass were beyond the normal expectation of coincidence. I told Scalp I would make immediate arrangements to transport a semitrailer load of heifers from Myall Plains. The line of heifers had been fed separately all through the winter and they were in reasonable condition.

  We turned back and upon reaching the vehicle the next stop was the bore. Another track led off from the road to a little holding paddock of about four hectares. At the opposite side to the entrance gate a huge diesel engine marked the site of the bore and nestled in among the timber, thirty metres away, stood the supply tank.

  ‘A hundred thousand litres of water there,’ Scalp said proudly.

  ‘How many litres an hour?’

  ‘She pumps three and a half thousand.’

  I pulled out my notebook and did some quick calculations. At the height of summer a beast consumes forty to fifty litres of water a day. The bore pumped about three and a half thousand litres an hour. For eight hundred head a full tank would last about three days. To keep ahead of consumption the bore had to run for twenty hours each second day.

  ‘Looks like I’ll be taking up residence here,’ I said half jokingly. Even for a bushie like me it was going to be a lonely old camp. But compared to the hassles of pushing cows and calves along a stock route it would be like a beach on a tropical island.

  The water trough was about twenty metres down the slope from the tank. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble with this trough. Stout wooden rails had been secured to posts at four-metre intervals to prevent any animal damaging the fibreglass surface. I couldn’t have been more impressed. Scalp must have noticed my mood and was keen to show me more. He told me there was a pinnacle called Mt Kennedy and that the station consequently carried that name. The surveyor Edmund Kennedy had been with Mitchell on his expedition in 1845 and they passed through here.

  It was some kilometres to Scalp’s camp. The dirt road led over a pass onto a tableland of sandy-loam heavily timbered with cypress pine. We turned off to the east and a couple of kilometres off the road the track passed the stockyards. A big solid loading ramp stood at the front of a large set of timber yards. There was enough space to yard a thousand head and roadtrains could use the ramp. Beyond the yards and half hidden among the trees was a hut with hitching rails out the front. The hut had the quaint style of early settlement—a high pitched roof and a tin chimney. The walls were pine slab, severely cracked and weathered. In the old days they had little choice with timber. A dwelling constructed from hardwood would draw the white ants.

  No one lived there, but there were signs of men coming and going. A two-hundred litre drum with the top cut out overflowed with empty stubbie bottles. Inside, discarded clothing lay on the dirt floor and the fireplace had become the rubbish can for empty food tins.

  ‘The horse runners,’ Scalp muttered, a little embarrassed. ‘They party on a bit up here. Hit the grog bad.’

  ‘Brumbies out here?’

  ‘No, no. I got this real good stallion. Me mates. Me draftin’ mates, they let mares loose with him. Foals comin’ all the time, so they run ’em all in from time to time. Ever
ything’s done here. Breakin’—the lot.’

  ‘Where do these horses run?’

  ‘All up through them ranges.’ He waved his arm out towards the main divide, blue in the distance.

  ‘That all your country?’ I hadn’t yet become used to the rangelands.

  ‘Abandoned pastoral leases,’ he said, his eyes to the ground. ‘Well, more or less abandoned. Some blokes run a few cattle up there.’

  Everywhere I looked were bullet holes. Several had penetrated the front door, but it was in bad shape anyway. There was a shed with just an iron roof. An old truck had been parked in it for years. The windows were shot out and probably bullets hastened the collapse of the tyres. For an Australian outback camp scene it was not, however, particularly abnormal. Only a year before while walking in the Warrumbungles I had stumbled onto a deserted timber camp where goat skulls and empty shells had been used in bizarre decorative forms. I remember lengthening my stride considerably.

  Much to my relief Scalp kept tea and coffee in the hut. He set the fire in a rough fireplace outside and placed the billy.

  The timber encroached upon the little hut from every side. I had just seated myself on a wood block when there was a rush of wind in the leaves. I turned and watched a whirly-whirly advance, collecting dead grass and bits of paper. It passed over a dog kennel; the scrap iron roof creaked in the updraft and then it was on top of us. The soot of old fires blew all over us. Scalp cursed and dusted himself. I looked back at the dog kennel and saw it for the first time. The corrugated iron sides were not merely riddled with bullet holes, but shot out leaving gaping holes. A shiver crept up my back, my neck tingled and slapping the soot from my shirt I looked to see if the billy had boiled.

  Scalp dropped me back with the cattle about mid-afternoon. I did a count of the unmothered calves and there were six left. The road had dried out enough for my small truck and I went down to the Old Boy’s place to telephone Annette. About an hour later her father arrived in a little truck with a calf crate.

  Like Smokie, Noel Hamilton carried the scars of a lifetime of chasing scrubbers in the Blank Space. His sleeves were rolled up and I doubted whether there was any original skin left on his forearms. There was a gauntness about his frame and he had gone snowy grey, but unlike most men in their fifties his stomach line compared with an eighteen-year-old’s. If I had detected a weariness about him I was soon mistaken. We ran the calves down and loaded them within ten minutes. If I needed a hand he told me to telephone him and I knew he meant it.

  The roadtrains arrived at 1.00 a.m. The quick passage through Hebel probably averted heavy losses. Only four cows perished. With the calves it was a different story. They were in a pitiful state. Seven died in transit and at first light it was obvious many more would die. Some lay on their sides, beaten. Driven by thirst, the cows had bolted through the gate to the creek. I knew none would return for some hours, but fifty calves at least appeared too weak to follow. Against the mothering too was activity near where we unloaded. A bloke had arrived to work on a harvester in the little paddock and I think some of the cows were spooked.

  Within a week of the unloading of the mob sixty calves died. The clouds massed again and dropped a deluge of a hundred millimetres. For some of the calves it was the final death knell, for their bodies had no resistance and they died of exposure.

  The scene at Amby Creek was dismal and deeply distressing. We humans hold the key to the welfare of animals. Whatever the circumstances, these things should not occur. Looking around, I resolved for the rest of my life to stock well below recognised carrying capacity.

  The rumours of disaster were now common. A whole herd from far western New South Wales was unloaded on a stock route and virtually buried at the site. Shire bulldozers were used to dig the trenches. A huge mob of cows and calves after walking fifteen kilometres for water floundered in thick mud; the holes left dry by the previous mob. These sort of stories reached Mitchell nearly every day.

  Very little could be done to assist the mothering. Calves that were too weak for Noel to try and rear I loaded onto the Old Boy’s jeep and dropped them among the bulk of the cows. Only one of these found a mother and survived. After the storm there were no weak calves left to worry about.

  It took only a week for the cows to eat the first creek paddock to a level where a shift was urgent and it took another two days to gently move the weaker mob into another small paddock on the creek. Both mobs were too weak to go on the stock route, which was disappointing because the Mitchell grass was superior to the explosion of nutritionless summer grasses in the creek paddocks which had been so heavily stocked for years the Mitchell grass had petered out.

  Following the shift of the cows and calves onto fresh feed I took the opportunity to go home. The first mob was doing well and the Old Boy had opened the gates into some escarpment country which gave me a few more days. Nature had total control for the next two or three weeks.

  I had planned a ten-day break. There were urgent estate matters to be resolved. The family accountant had a number of issues to discuss with me and I was hoping to catch up with my other boys. My eldest son, James, an auctioneer in Sydney, had become engaged to Kari while I was away. The next boy, Richard, I hadn’t seen for several months. He was in his second year of law at Southern Cross University, Lismore, and the baby of the family, Tom, lived in Sydney with his grandmother pursuing a Business Studies course at the University of Technology.

  I got no further than signing a few papers for the accountant. The Old Boy telephoned with bad news. The pink-eye virus had hit the calves. Within forty-eight hours every calf was blind in at least one eye.

  The pink-eye virus severely affects the eye for about two weeks. In chronic untreated cases it can result in death. The calf, stumbling around unable to see, walks into trees, logs and fences. Unless the mother is very attentive with regular feeding the calf becomes a skeleton of its former self within days and remains stunted for the rest of its life. The only treatment is penicillin ointment administered directly to the eye. I had to load the two racehorses and leave next day.

  Old Bill Anderson took over the horses and for the next week I threw the blind calves and treated them. A horse was no use to me for this work. I had to sneak up on the badly affected calves and get them. If I missed the first time I would have to leave the calf and come back. To chase a blind calf in timber caused more damage to the calf than the virus. Sometimes the bigger calves would rear and fall on top of me and when the struggle was over we would both just lie there, panting. If my left hand missed the ear on the strong calves they might half drag me for ten metres and that was when I copped the kicks. At the end of the week I wore a multiple of colours from my ribs to my shins.

  The pink-eye battle is one that I did win. Mercifully, the cows were unaffected. The local vet explained that high humidity and almost zero resistance to the virus had led to the outbreak in the calves.

  The virus left as suddenly as it had arrived. Over the years I have observed a number of outbreaks and they usually drag on for weeks. It appears almost every calf was hit at the same time and their sight recovery was almost simultaneous. If the herd had to accommodate the virus, then the circumstances were the best possible. The virus slowed the recovery of the calves from drought, but the cows had gained strength rapidly. Two weeks after their nightmare journey I could see they were on target for Mt Kennedy. The Old Boy did everything possible to make the feed last. He moved his sheep off all the creek country, from one side of the place to the other.

  After the pink-eye outbreak I shifted camp to the Maranoa River outside Mitchell. I pitched the tent only a hundred metres from the caravan park where I could have a shower and wash my clothes. I had been washing myself in muddy creek water and when I soaked soiled clothes in a bucket I removed the sweat and compounded the stains.

  I set the camp up among weeping myalls overlooking the river which had wide sandbars and a meandering flow of water. There were hundreds of birds, including man
y species I had never seen in New South Wales. At night the river became a world of murmurs, shrill squawks and little growls.

  Although this period lasted less than two weeks, it was the only peaceful time I had during the drought campaign. I would breakfast at 5.00 a.m.—a few sticks, strike of a match and I had a billy of tea as quickly as in a modern kitchen. Then there was cereal followed by toast and I would drive to the stables, saddle Vodka and ride over to the racecourse. The air was cool at that hour. I would trot him around the circuit once and then drop over his neck and do pace work. Bill had a few horses running in the forest country around the racecourse and I had to be careful some mornings I didn’t run into one. Vodka behaved in the initial stage of his preparation and I found it a refreshing start to the day.

  When I returned to the stables, I would release Vodka in the sand yard. He would pigroot and half buck and then down he would go for a roll; three or four rolls one side and the same on the other.

  Often Bill and I sat down outside the sand yard and yarned. He had owned and managed stations in the Blank Space all his life. I could listen for hours to his stories about the post-war years. Brumbies galloped along the tops of every range—from the Great Divide to the Chesterton and north to the Carnarvons. Men in those days rode after them, jumped from their horses and threw them. I used to watch Bill walking sometimes and I reckon that body had taken a thousand more knocks than a veteran league player.

  Sometimes, he told me, danger came from unexpected quarters. As a boy Bill had the job of taking the meat out to mustering camps by packhorse. Packs of dingoes would follow him and on one occasion the dogs began to snap at the heels of the packhorse. The load and distance were too much to outrun them. Slapping at the dingoes with a stockwhip he managed to unsaddle the horses and release them. The numbers increased like a pack of hyenas and forced him to scale a tree. He managed to pull one bag of meat up after him with the stockwhip. The dingoes tore the packs open, ate the meat and hung around the base of the tree. In the end he had to give them the lot, for they had no intention of leaving while they could smell the meat.